OTHER COMMENTARIES
NEWS
by Michael Jansen – Irish Times
Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire visiting Syria with other peace activists.
by Global Research News – TRANSCEND Media Service
19 May 2013 – Reports from Syria suggest that the US sponsored Al Nusra mercenary force and affiliated formations have inflicted heavy losses in different part of the country. Press reports confirm that the rebel stronghold of Al Qusayr on the Northern border of Lebanon is now under the control of government forces.
IN FOCUS
by Patrick Cockburn – The Independent
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
by Serge Halimi – Le Monde Diplomatique
It’s not really news that some politicians love money and like to spend time with those who have lots of it. Or that they sometimes behave like a caste that is above the law. Or that the tax system favours the affluent, and that the free circulation of capital enables them to stash their cash in tax havens. But de facto dictatorship can count on the mainstream media to come up with diverting subjects to delay, and then misdirect, collective revolt, and to personalise and thereby depoliticise the most shocking scandals.
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
by Robin Edward Poulton PhD – The New York Times
What makes Bill Keller or John McCain or any other gung-ho armchair warrior in Washington think that an Al Qaeda-related Sunni regime in Damascus led by Al-Nusra or by the militant Muslim Brotherhood would be good for America, or Lebanon, or Israel?
by Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
In the end, no offer of compromise was ever enough, and all forms of moderation were seen as betrayal. The war continued with the last months being particularly destructive. The psychological wounds are deep, and the healing of individual traumas with psycho-spiritual techniques remains a real priority, for the sufferings of the war may sow the seeds of future unrest and a desire for revenge.
by Mazher Hussain – TRANSCEND Media Service
Apart from spying, many countries spread misinformation, instigate violence, kidnap or kill people in covert operations, facilitate terrorist attacks and even wage wars against other countries in the name of national interest and security. But if individuals or groups engage in similar things like rumour mongering, acts of violence or rioting, then we declare them to be deviant and criminal.
by Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra – TRANSCEND Media Service
An individual has health insurance so that in case of illness or bodily injury he can have insurance benefits. I am inspired by the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, who argued passionately at the University Massachusetts Boston that we must think about the health of our planet as we think about health of the individual.
by Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
Is Burma’s Aung Suu Kyi herself complicit in this Rohingya ethnnocide? is a valid, empirical question that needs to be raised.
by Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
What is strange in all this is that Obama talks the talk, but seems unwilling to walk the walk. Such a disjunction invites cynicism about law and morality, and induces despair on the part of those of us who believe the world we inhabit badly needs red lines, but the right red lines.
ACTIVISM
by Holly Williams – The Independent
From the Second World War refusenik to the 19-year-old Israeli, Holly Williams talks to five people who risked shame and suffering to take a stand as conscientious objector.
by Stephen C. Webster –The Raw Story
An 83-year old nun who broke into a Tennessee depleted uranium storage facility in 2012 and splashed human blood on several surfaces, exposing a massive security hole at the nation’s only facility used to store radioactive conventional munitions, was convicted Wednesday [8 May 2013] and faces a term of up to 20 years in prison. The only regret Sister Megan Rice shared with members of her jury was that she wished 70 years hadn’t passed before she took direct action.
AFRICA
by Roger Annis, The Bullet – TRANSCEND Media Service
France Parliament Votes to Extend Combat Mission While UN Security Council Readies a Policing Force
ANGLO AMERICA
by Chris Arsenault – Al Jazeera
Living standards for indigenous people on par with “third world” countries, buttressed by a large population of unemployed young men in a “warrior cohort”, and easy-to-target economic infrastructure, all mean Canada has conditions for a potential indigenous “insurgency”.
by Chris Hedges - Truthdig
The deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill.
by The Nation, Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service
As the hunger strike reaches its 100th day on May 17 [2013], 100 prisoners are refusing food. The Pentagon, which once called prisoner suicides “asymmetric warfare,” has dismissed the hunger strike as a publicity stunt. Rather than “reward bad behavior,” the official response has been to throw the men into solitary confinement and keep the most weakened alive through torturous means.
by Carol Rosenberg - The Miami Herald
U.S. military medical providers counted 102 Guantanamo prisoners as hunger strikers on Thursday [16 May 2013], the first increase after three weeks when the number seemed to plateau at 100. Navy medical workers were tube-feeding 30 of the hunger strikers, said Army Lt. Col. Samuel House. Three were hospitalized, but none had “life-threatening conditions,” he said.
BRICS
by Valentin Mândrăşescu – TRANSCEND Media Service
A week before the recent BRICS summit in Durban, the Kremlin administration has silently produced a document which describes the Russian strategy in the context of BRICS cooperation. The document makes for a fascinating read for anyone brave enough to plow through the dense Russian legalese. The strategy has been designed in the “inner circle” of Vladimir Putin’s team, so it is safe to assume that it represents the official view on the BRICS future.
by Asian Centre for Human Rights - TRANSCEND Media Service
Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) today released its report, “India’s Child Soldiers” (http://achrweb.org/reports/india/JJ-IndiasChildSoldiers2013.pdf), the first ever comprehensive study on the subject in India, and accused the Government of India of defending the records of the armed opposition groups, officially designated as terrorist groups, on the recruitment of child soldiers before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
EUROPE
by Julian Borger – The Guardian
Forceful Austrian position signals deep EU divisions on Syria ahead of this month’s embargo decision.
LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
by Mike McDonald, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service
Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty on Friday [10 May 2013] of genocide and crimes against humanity during the bloodiest phase of the country’s 36-year civil war and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. It was the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide in his or her own country.
by Amy Goodman - Truthdig
Former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt was hauled off to prison last Friday [10 May 2013]. It was a historic moment, the first time in history that a former leader of a country was tried for genocide in a national court. He was given an 80-year prison sentence. The case was inspired and pursued by three brave Guatemalan women: the judge, the attorney general and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
by Jorge Capelan and Toni Solo – TRANSCEND Media Service
For the imperial propaganda machine, leftist Latin American governments and political leaders are either too leftist, not really leftist, or blind fanatics, as well as being shrewdly machiavellian, capitalists in red clothing, enemies of the market and scores of other contradictory pairs of things all at once.
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
by Global Research News – TRANSCEND Media Service
Former Iraqi oil minister Issam al-Jalabi says that although Iraq is an oil-rich country, it still imports petroleum products from abroad to meet its needs 10 years after the US-led invasion of the country.
by Sharmine Narwani – Al Akhbar
The Middle East is treading water these days. Two years of rhetoric about ousting dictators, revolution, freedom, honor, dignity, and democracy – without result – has people on edge, their disillusionment now demanding an outlet. The rise of political Islam – once an inevitable byproduct of democratization – arrived too hard, too fast; too aggressively championed, organized, and weaponized by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
by Franklin Lamb - CounterPunch
Two-Thirds of Palestinian Refugees are Living in Poverty
by Wade Stone – Global Research
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”― Friedrich Nietzsche. Every Spring and Summer, during a period of low pressure over the Persian Gulf, powerful winds known as the “shamals and sharqi,” sweep down from the north and north east into Saudi Arabia, whipping up ever more grains of sand as they head south and south west across the Arabian Desert.
PALESTINE / ISRAEL
by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose – The Guardian
That the world’s most famous scientist had recognised the justice of the Palestinian cause is potentially a turning point for the BDS campaign. And that his stand was approved by a majority of two to one in the Guardian poll that followed his announcement shows just how far public opinion has turned against Israel’s relentless land-grabbing and oppression.
by Robert Booth and Harriet Sherwood – The Guardian
Chomsky, a US professor and well-known supporter of the Palestinian cause, joined British academics from the universities of Cambridge, London, Leeds, Southampton, Warwick, Newcastle, York and the Open University to tell Hawking they were “surprised and deeply disappointed” that he had accepted the invitation to speak at next month’s presidential conference in Jerusalem, which will chaired by Shimon Peres and attended by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
by Patrick O. Strickland – Socialist Worker
15 May 2013 – Every year, Palestinians in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and the diaspora mark the Nakba (which means “catastrophe” in Arabic), referring to the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel that led to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land and homes.
by Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Netanyahu led government is clearly committed to achieving the political embodiment of Greater Israel, and would not settle for anything less. It is seeking as much legitimation as possible for this expansionist objective, hopeful that adroit diplomacy with American help can yield such a result.
THE UNITED NATIONS
by Al Arabiya with Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service
The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday [15 May 2013] condemned the Syrian government’s ”escalation” of the country’s war and backed the opposition Syrian National Coalition in transition talks. While the non-binding text has no legal force, resolutions adopted by the 193-nation assembly can carry significant moral and political weight, according to Reuters.
ECONOMICS
by Colin McKay – TRANSCEND Media Service
To address the problem of “systemically important” banks, “without exposing the taxpayer to the risk of loss,” our puppet politicians have agreed to confiscate … the savings of taxpayers.
by Valentin Katasonov – Strategic Culture Foundation
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (hereinafter – the Committee) is closely associated with supranational organisations like the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (BIS), which is often called the «club», the «headquarters» of central banks or the «Central Bank of Last Resort».
by Rob Urie - CounterPunch
Rob Urie writes that the ruling class wants austerity to transfer wealth from the government to their own greedy wallets.
MILITARISM
by Washington’s Blog – TRANSCEND Media Service
And Many More Covert Wars Without Congressional Oversight … Let Alone Public Knowledge
MEDIA
by Russell Brandom, The Verge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Closed-door meetings mean no one knows for sure how damaging the final treaty will be.
by Neil Clark – The American Conservative
Media Lens Debunks the BBC’s Humanitarian Interventionists
KUDANKULAM ANTI-NUCLEAR SATYAGRAHA, INDIA
by People’s Movemenmt Against Nuclear Energy – TRANSCEND Media Service
Following the Supreme Court’s verdict, the Indian nuclear authorities are announcing various dates to fake-commission the project and trying to protect their own self interests and save the Russians from all the embarrassing and serious charges. Instead of answering the component-related concerns, financial improprieties and liability commitments in an earnest manner, they are spreading irresponsible rumors and conjectures as they have been doing since 2005 about commissioning the Koodankulam project.
SYRIA IN DEPTH
by Paul Larudee – TRANSCEND Media Service
“When can we go back?”
This plaintive question of refugees since time immemorial was asked again of Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees intake center in Zahleh, Lebanon, overlooking the vast Beqaa valley, now dotted with refugee camps wherever we look.
by Paul Larudee – TRANSCEND Media Service
As I begin to compose this, I hear what sounds like artillery and rocket fire in the distance, mixed with occasional small arms and possible explosions. Most of their targets must be far away, because I don’t hear them hit. The explosions may or may not be something else.
by Paul Larudee – TRANSCEND Media Service
9 May, 2013 – Damascus – the delegation meets with the Minister of Justice and presents a petition for the release of 72 non-violent activists. If the government wants to make a strong impression of its good will, it will release all 72 at one time before the end of the week, in which case it will be big news. If it decides not to release all of them, it will probably do so in stages, without a lot of fanfare. Let us hope.
by Paul Larudee – TRANSCEND Media Service
Further to the sniper firing at the car transporting Mother Agnes, it apparently happened twice, both coming and going, and as far as she knows, the attack was not directed specifically at her, but rather towards all vehicles, with a view toward making the route impassable. The car was damaged but Mother Agnes is fine.
by Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
Since the cause of this crisis is the widespread violence in Syria, we call for an immediate end of all aid – lethal and nonlethal – to all combatants, an immediate and mutual ceasefire, and immediate negotiations among all the parties without preconditions. Lebanese citizens, Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, Lebanese charitable institutions and other Lebanese civil society institutions deserve much credit for providing support that the international society has not done. However, a refugee influx of this magnitude is more than any society the size of Lebanon can accommodate without aid from the UN.
by SDP General Assembly – TRANSCEND Media Service
First, we would like to welcome the members of the international committee for the support of reconciliation and solidarity, wishing them a comfortable stay so that they can work on revealing the facts and incidents and the scope of injury that our great nation has undergone on its third year. The SDP is one of the national parties of the opposition. What we greatly fear of is the transformation of the Syrian crisis from a political to a social crisis, sliding into a civil war, entailing a foreign intervention and internationalization of the crisis under the pretext of terrorism to implement foreign agendas.
by SANA – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Lebanese ad-Diyar newspaper revealed that Turkish authorities are involved in traffic of body organs of injured Syrians who reach Turkish territories. In its issue on Saturday [4 May 2013], it said they transport young Syrian injured to hospitals in Antalya and Iskenderun in cars guarded by Turkish police and intelligence. Injured Syrians have their body organs excised after being anesthetized to be later killed and mostly buried in the Turkish lands or sent to the border.
by Franklin Lamb - CounterPunch
At the UN this past week a US-Qatari-Saudi drafted General Assembly Resolution designed to increase pressure on the Assad government stumbled badly and fell far short of a predicted overwhelming vote in favor. A major diplomatic victory for Syria’s UN Ambassador as public opinion shifts in favor of the Assad government and pressure as well as certain optimism builds in the run-up to the Geneva II conference being organized by the White House and the Kremlin.
by Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
Mussalaha Peace Mission to Syria – May 1- 11, 2013. We consider it beyond debate that the Syrian people have the right to determine their own government and their own future. Foreign interference is currently preventing the Syrian people from exercising their right to self-determination. We are concerned that such pernicious intervention is tearing apart the fabric of the country itself, with long-term consequences that can only be imagined. The cautionary example of Iraq serves to remind us of the dire consequences of such international folly.
by ISTEAMS-International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria – Transcend Media Service
A focus of the work of AMRIS-Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) In Syria is to support the “Ten Points towards Reconciliation and Peace in Syria”, which were presented to politicians, community groups, leaders of faith groups, and the media by Mother Agnes Mariam when she visited Australia in October 2012.
REVIEWS
by Arnold August and Julie Lévesque – Global Research
Part I of an interview with Arnold August, author of ‘Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion.’ He is a political scientist an author, journalist and lecturer living in Canada. He is the author of ‘Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections’ and has also contributed a chapter entitled “Socialism and Elections” for the volume ‘Cuban Socialism in a New Century: Adversity, Survival and Renewal.’
by Sumeet Grover – TRANSCEND Media Service
A documentary produced by Survival International, is a record of the multi-billion pounds FTSE 100-listed British mining giant Vedanta Resources Plc with its ambitions to destroy the breathtaking beauty, culture, forests and tribal life of the Niyamgiri Hills located in eastern India in order to mine millions of tons of bauxite from these hills to produce aluminium.
POETRY FORMAT
by Nasser Barghouty – Palestine Chronicle
In whose name they allow themselves to hurt you?
To what end? To what beginning?
Have they said as much to you?
Have they counted your tears?
Have they wiped your fears?
APPEALS
by Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
A Global Harmony Association Constant Petition to the UN to Collect 1 Million Signatures by September 21, 2013 – International Peace Day. PLEASE HELP THE WORLD BY SIGNING THE PETITION http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Global_Disarmament_Now_1/.
TRANSCEND News
by Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Media Service
Usually our general meeting occurs every two years. However, this year marks the twentieth anniversary of TRANSCEND International and we decided to get together for our TRANSCEND General Assembly one year earlier. The Venue that will host us will be the Galtung-Institut for Peace Theory and Peace Practice in Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany, 5 minutes by train from Basel-Switzerland.
IN OTHER LANGUAGES
by Marinella Correggia – Centro Studi Sereno Regis
Una delegazione internazionale di pacifisti guidata dalla premio Nobel per la pace irlandese Mairead Maguire sta visitando Damasco e altri luoghi del paese per sostenere il movimento di riconciliazione nazionale Mussalaha e chiedere alla comunità internazionale, spiega Maguire, di rispettare la sovranità della Siria e l’assoluto bisogno di pace e autodeterminazione del popolo siriano.
by Marcelo Justo – Carta Maior
Mark Weisbrot, co-diretor do Center for Economic and Policy Research, de Washington, fala sobre as perspectivas da economia brasileira no atual cenário internacional. Para Weisbrot, Brasil deveria seguir o exemplo da China que fez um gigantesco investimento para manter aquecida a atividade econômica no país. Exatamente o oposto do que faz a União Europeia, que, na opinião do economista, segue mantendo uma “demente política de austeridade”.
by Leusa Santos – TRANSCEND Media Service
Dissertação de Mestrado em Letras
by Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
La ricerca potrebbe riguardare varie soluzioni, anziché la soluzione. Che fioriscano 1.000 dialoghi, in ciascun quartiere, ciascun villaggio, ad arricchire il prodotto nazionale lordo d’idee. Facilitatori sostenuti dall’ONU, con conoscenza della mediazione, anziché con armi e binocoli.
by Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
Alternative: rendersi conto che i vecchi tempi d’oro sono finiti, che USA-Occidente-Giappone sono battuti dalla concorrenza BRICS. Agire per accordi più modesti, accettabili. E, invece di associarvi agli USA nell’aumentare l’insicurezza, associatevi ai vostri vicini in una Comunità dell’Asia dell’Est e rivedete la TPP per una partnership egalitaria dalla Cina agli USA e dal Giappone all’America Latina.
by TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service
La Alta Comisionada de la Organización de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Navi Pillay, calificó de histórica la condena a 80 años de prisión al dictador guatemalteco, José Efraín Ríos Montt. Pillay celebró que Guatemala hizo historia al convertirse en el primer país en condenar a un dictador por genocidio en una corte nacional.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
by Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
11 May, 2013 – In Arabic
by Clarin – TRANSCEND Media Service
(Spanish with English Subtitles) – In an exclusive interview for the Argentine newspaper Clarin, shared with the Observer, Assad says he welcomes attempts at dialogue, but believes that western states are looking for ways to fuel the violence, rather than stop it, and are seeking to topple his regime regardless of the toll.
by Luke Waters – World News Australia
Story from 8th May 2013 about a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon, interviews with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire and Father Dave Smith. Photo journalist Luke Waters participated in the Mussalaha Peace Delegation to Syria.
by TeleSur TV – TRANSCEND Media Service
(Spanish with English subtitles) – May 10, 2013 – The crisis in Syria and its effect on civil society continues to draw attention of journalists and international peace activists, a delegation led by the Nobel-Peace-Prize Winner Mairead Maguire, arrived in Damascus to witness the situation and report the truth to the world.
by HJ Lim – TRANSCEND Media Service
Beethoven – Adagio Sostenuto – ”This exceptionally gifted artist ignited an incomparably fiery pianistic space…with super-virtuoso sound images, an incredible enchantment of possibilities of pianistic expressions, subtle and grandiose, magically performed by the phenomenal virtuoso.”
– Basellandschaftlicher Zeitung
IN-DEPTH VIDEOS
by Al-Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service
May 13, 2013 – Outgoing Syrian National Coalition President Moaz al-Khatib talks about the issues he was facing as the head of the Syrian National Coalition. He said that he felt like a salesman for foreign governments who had their own agendas in Syria rather than representing the Syrian people, as he was being used to sign papers on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
JOKE OF THE WEEK
by TMS editor
A rich American tourist was holidaying in Rome, and was intent on seeing the Pope. There he stood, in a big long line dressed in a rather expensive suit, hoping the Pope would notice how important he was and perhaps talk a few words with him.
